Writer of books for Young Adults and Kids

Pandora Jones: Admission

Published May 2014

Pandora Jones: Admission is the first book in a trilogy. The second [Pandora Jones: Deception] is to be released in October 2014 and the final book [Pandora Jones: Reckoning] in May 2015.

It took 8 hours for Melbourne to die...

Pandora Jones wakes in a hospital – her body weak, her memory providing only flashes of horrific scenes of death. She soon discovers that her family has succumbed to a plague pandemic which almost wiped out humanity. Pandora is one of the lucky ones. She and other young survivors have been relocated to The School – an isolated and quarantined facility.

But the students’ safety is not guaranteed, and Pan suspects that there are terrible secrets being kept from them. Pan must use all her physical and mental abilities to discover where the truth lies and what is truly going on outside the walls of The School.

Bookseller and Publisher said of Admission:

Page after page, Barry Jonsberg maintains the suspense. Every answer is met with a new question. This relentless pace offers no time for guessing, so each shocking plot twist comes as a jarring slap, as much to the reader as to Pandora herself. Jonsberg is an exceptional writer who seems just as comfortable with dystopian world-building as with the more lighthearted realism of 2013 award-winner My Life as an Alphabet. In this trilogy, Pandora Jones will push her way through the wealth of dystopian fiction to stand rightfully at the forefront of the genre.

The Author Says

I had so much fun writing this.

Mind you, I always have fun. But this story allowed me to let my imagination go. It all started with a simple idea [aren't they always?]: what if a girl woke up in a strange place called The School and she had no idea how she got there? What happened in the past? What does The School want with her? What secrets are being kept from her? Why do her dreams seem so real and her memories seem so dream-like?

Well, I guess if you want the answers, then you'll have to read the book. And then the next one. And then the last one...

Leah Cartwright is ninety-three years old. She's feisty, tartly amusing and sensesthat time is slipping away. Carly is sixteen, bold… and yet hesitant… and eager tointerview Leah for her local history project. Slowly a relationship blossomsbetween this unlikely pair, as Leah revisits her past to share with Carly her uniquecoming-of-age story.